“Fane, I don’t mind saying it. You’ve been a good pal to me.”
“Hark, there’s the milkman at last!” Michael exclaimed. He went out into the sparkling air of the fine Summer morning and came back with plenty of milk for breakfast. After they had made a sort of meal, he suggested that Barnes ought to come with him and visit some of the Colonial Agencies. They walked down Victoria Street and across St. James’ Park, and in the Strand he made Barnes have a shave. The visit to the barber took away some of his nocturnal raffishness, and Michael found him very amusing during the various discussions that took place in the Agencies.
“I think the walk has done you good.”
“Yes,” Barnes doubtfully admitted. “I don’t think it has done me much harm.”
They had lunch at Romano’s, where Barnes drank a good deal of Chianti and became full of confidence in his future.
“That’s where it is, Fane. A fellow like you is lucky. But that’s no reason why I shouldn’t be lucky in my turn. My life has been a failure so far. Yes, I’m not going to attempt to deny it. There are lots of things in my life that might have been different. You’ll understand when I say different I mean pleasanter for everybody all round, myself included. But that’s all finished. With this fruit-farm—well, of course it’s no good grumbling and running down good things—those apples we saw were big enough to make anybody’s fortune. Cawdashit, Fane, I can see myself sitting under one of those apple-trees and counting the bloody fruit falling down at my feet and me popping them into baskets and selling them—where was it he said we sold them?” Barnes poured out more Chianti. “Really, it seems a sin on a fine day like this to be hanging about in London. Well, I’ve had some sprees in old London, and that’s a fact; so I’m not going to start running it down now. If I hadn’t lost that watch-bracelet, I wouldn’t give a damn for anybody. Good old London,” he went on meditatively. “Yes, I’ve had some times—good times and bad times—and here I am.”
He gradually became incoherent, and Michael thought it would be as well to escort him back to Leppard Street and impress on him once again that he must remove all his things immediately.
“You’ll have to be quick with your packing-up. You ought to sail next week. I shall go and see about your passage to-morrow.”
They drove back to Leppard Street in a taxi, and as they got out Barnes said emphatically:
“You know what it is, Fane? Cawdashit! I feel like a marquis when I’m out with you, and it I hadn’t have lost that watch-bracelet I’d feel like the bloody German Emperor. That’s me. All up in the air one minute, and yet worry myself barmy over a little thing like a watch the next.”